


Erode From Day to Day

by ItsClydeBitches



Category: Preacher (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cass is creepy, Feeding, Gen, Kid Fic, Song Lyrics, Supernatural - Freeform, iffy little vampire boy, making friends the only way he knows how
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-03-03
Packaged: 2018-09-28 00:58:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10060358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItsClydeBitches/pseuds/ItsClydeBitches
Summary: As kids Jesse and Tulip find something living out in the woods. It calls itself Cassidy. It likes blood and cheap candy. Jesse wants to take it home with him.Written for the prompt: Write something inspired by "Weeds or Wildflowers" by Parsonfields





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, friends! (Including, I hope, the lovely anon who prompted this months ago). This fic was an experience to write. I felt sort of... dreamy the whole time I was working on it, and I get the sense that this might have translated into the story itself. If it did, I can only hope it did so in a good way <3

They were so close; so very close to freedom. All the tiny feet clad in sneakers were poised like runners beneath their desks. Arms were straining, hands gripped tight to the edge of their seats, and not a single eye dared to stray from the clock. The only movement was the sneaky packing going on, slow as molasses—impatience lengthening those last five seconds as Mr. Rogan’s eyes narrowed.

 

“Hey, squirts, hey,” he said. “Settle down now. It’s not the weekend just yet—”

 

The bell made a liar out of him. The normally shrill annoyance might as well have been a call to arms given how quickly everyone was up and out the door. Mr. Rogan tried valiantly to remind them of the math homework due Monday, problems one through fifteen, but it mostly fell on deaf ears. There was a mob making for the bright, sunny afternoon and nothing could stop them.

 

Especially not with Jesse Custer leading the charge.

 

“Swing set!” he called and half the class cheered in response. The others had already turned towards the main doors, looking for parents and guardians to take them home, but Jesse’s group made a sharp right, pushing out onto the playground and flying over the wood-chips. They held tight to their backpack straps, bodies bent in an attempt to gain speed. They were sweaty, multi-colored blurs under the 3:00pm sun.

 

Past the jungle gym and around the sandbox. The swing set was in sight now—Jesse could nearly  _feel_ the hot metal under his palm—when, suddenly, a darker hand came out of nowhere to slap it first.

 

“ _Fucking_ O’Hare,” a kid said in a rare display of true cursing. Everyone collapsed as one, hands on their knees as they tried to get their breath back.

 

Tulip stood tall though. Her hand was already out and demanding the usual fare. Slowly, the other kids began pulling candy and knick-knacks out of their bags, handing them over. Grudgingly.

 

“You were closest to the door,” Simon grumbled, knowing the complaint wouldn’t do him any good. Tulip just shrugged.

 

“And I was all the way in the back last week in Ms. Julie’s class and I still won then. Not my fault all you idiots are so slow.” She wiggled her fingers. Simon deposited a half eaten Milky Way in her palm. “Thank _you_ ,” and with a vicious kick Tulip sent up a cloud of dust that had everyone else running, cutting across the playground to the cul-de-sac where parents were waiting to yell at them for being late.

 

Jesse scowled, threading a hand through the back of his hair. “You always win.”

 

“Turtle,” Tulip said, poking him in the chest. She started jogging in place. “ _Cheetah_.”

 

“Yeah well c’mon, wasn’t there something about slow and steady?”

 

Jesse bent on one knee to pick up all the stuff Tulip was starting to drop. He nearly fell backwards when she bent too and just shoved it all into his arms.

 

“You can have it,” she said. “I’ve still got all that loot from Maya’s birthday party and besides, aren’t you going to see Him?”

 

Tulip said _Him_ will all the gravity that a middle schooler could imbue in a word. It was grandiose and inexplicable, like all the years’ snow days rolled into one. Or winning relay day for your whole grade.  Or even finding that shiny, glimmering rock outside and just  _knowing_ it was treasure. It was all those things and more, smushed together and made into a person. Something like a person, anyway.

 

Jesse wouldn’t even think to disagree.

 

And he could see how Tulip’s hands shook as she re-wrapped the packet of Twizzlers. She wanted to go so badly.

 

“You went yesterday,” Jesse reminded her.

 

“I know.”

 

For a brief moment she bit her lip and Jesse realized, instinctually, that she was thinking about similarities between the three of them: dead parents, dead mom... dead existence. They didn’t really know how to deal with any of that. But they were kids, so they dealt anyway.

 

“I’ll tell your dad you had to stay behind and clean the chalkboards again, k?”

 

“K,” Jesse said and they shook on it, three slaps that ended in them linking fingers, pushing and pulling a bit before finishing with a fist-bump. They hauled themselves to their feet and Jesse crammed everything into his backpack.

 

“Careful,” Tulip said, already jogging away.

 

Jesse just flapped a hand at her back. “Never!”

 

She threw out a messy thumbs up. Always needed to have the last word.

 

Hauling himself in the opposite direction Jesse took off at a run, knowing that he only had so much time when he could be ‘cleaning chalkboards’ before Dad got suspicious. He took only a moment to make sure none of the teachers were sneaking out the back before jumping the small fence surrounding the playground. He landed in the soft dirt of a graveyard.

 

It wasn’t common, but sometimes people moved to Annville and when they did they had kids to put into the only school—and when they did that the parents inevitably balked at their angels playing next to the dead. Jesse had always liked it though: watching the tombstones crumble and the weeds grow taller each and every year, reading the strange first names attached to the surnames he’d grown up with; digging for bones, risking both the teachers' ire and some sort of ancient curse for disturbing the dead.

 

Except Jesse never thought of that as a bad thing. If he was dead he’d _want_ someone to disturb him. Wasn’t that more exciting?

 

_"Did you crawl out of the graveyard?"_

 

_"What graveyard?"_

_"The one back there. At the school."_

_"Nu uh, padre. Never been buried."_

_"...do you want to be?"_

_"Why the hell would I want that?"_

_"You’re dead aren’t you?"_

_“…am I?”_

 

Jesse drew his hand over the last headstone for something like luck, plunging into the tree-line. It was the only ‘forest’ that he’d ever seen, but he knew it was paltry compared to other parts of the world, the desert encroaching even here and leaving patches of dry, dusty earth amongst the trees. There was enough brush to darken the sky though—hide things that needed hiding—and it took Jesse long, precious minutes to find the path again, finally distinguishable by the empty bag of Cheetos he’d brought last time. With that familiar route under his feet he made good time. He broke into a grin when he found the log.

 

“Cass,” he whispered, and an ethereal head popped out from the rotten wood.

 

It had startled Jesse the first time he’d seen it, that pale, bedraggled face; hair matted every which way with mud and leaves. It was something straight out of the B horror movies he and Tulip had snuck into last summer, telling his Dad that they were at the school’s kiddie camp, the kiddie camp that they were helping Dad with the church, and the lazy teenager managing the ticket booth that they’d just forgotten Tulip’s sweater from the previous film. No one ever bothered to check any of those stories.

 

The movies gave him nightmares, but of course Jesse never told. A month ago he had gone exploring, half to tell himself that there was nothing out there in the woods _to_ scare him... and he'd been proven really, really wrong.

 

He’d wet himself a little, the first time he’d seen that face.

 

Now the face was just Cass. He clamored out of the hollow trunk, jeans stiff with grime and a once white shirt long gone grey. For a moment they just stood and stared at one another. Then Cass lifted his head and sniffed the wind like a dog.

 

“Hiya, Padre,” he said. He didn't blink. 

 

“I’m not a ‘padre’ yet,” Jesse grumbled and began obediently rolling up the sleeve of his shirt. He’d learned quick that it was always better after this. Whatever parts of Cass were scary tended to leave after he’d fed. He was more Cass like... and for that Jesse was willing to pretend that the feeding wasn’t scary all on its own.

 

Still, he gave an involuntary cry when Cass materialized before him, seeming to move from There to Here with nothing more than a faded blur. Cass did that a lot. Jesse might have thought he was a ghost if he didn’t know better. But oh, he _really_ did.

 

“Here,” Jesse said, extending his bare arm. Needing no further encouragement Cass latched on, biting deep into the tissue and hovering there, sucking in quick, jerky gulps. Jesse stared open-mouthed at the display. It hurt of course—fuck how it hurt—but this time, like every time, the pain was overshadowed by watching Cass move like a machine; like some horrible puppet twitching on a Master’s strings. It was only when he’d gotten a good number of mouthfuls down that his swaying grew natural, more human-like, and something similar to a blush crawled up into his cheeks. His animal chittering gave way to the happy hums of a kid just being a kid as he enjoyed dessert—and still Jesse stared.

 

_“You’re hurting me!” he shrieked, the thing pinning him to the ground and taking directly from his neck. Jesse got a knee up into his groin—which did absolutely nothing—and grabbed for a loose branch instead, knocking the thing off his chest and into the weeds. It sprawled there, raving and wild until Jesse managed to raise the crucifix he wore around his neck._

 

_A switch flipped. The monster blinked. It smiled._

 

_"...do you really think that's gonna do somethin'?"_  

 

Jesse wouldn’t truly feel the pain until he was back home hours later, with his sleeve pulled down low and lies slipping through his teeth about where he’d been.

 

Except... this night he wouldn’t be lying. At least he hoped not. Jesse hadn’t told Tulip, but he wanted to bring Cass home with him today. Wanted to grab this strange, frightening thing and drag him straight to their church, praying only that he wouldn’t light up in flames along the way. Jesse would hide Cass beneath his bed every night and whisper any bad dreams he had. He'd sleep easier knowing that at least one monster there was his friend.

 

“There are Twizzlers too,” he said, like this was any sort of normal conversation. For them it kind of was. Cass finished up with a saner look in his eye, careful to lick away the stray runs of blood curling around Jesse’s arm. They still left rusty rings though. Bracelets he was proud of. When Cass stepped back (feet bare, cold looking) Jesse immediately dumped the loot out between them.

 

Kit-Kat, Twizzlers, the half eaten Milky Way, and a crushed bag of chips from lunch. There was an equally smashed paper airplane and a yo-yo with a fraying string. Cass poked at it, watching it roll lopsided through the dirt.

 

“We used to have these too,” he said and Jesse—

 

_“Where are you from?”_

_Cass stared and grinned until Jesse got it._

_“_ When _are you from?”_

_“When is this?”_

_“2017.”_

 

_He let out a whistle as high and eerie as the wind through a keyhole. “Then I’m old, padre. I’ve got 120 years on you.”_

_Jesse wondered then how he’d done the math that fast. Jesse needed to know if that was true. Jesse had conflicting thoughts that Cass was both young and old and Jesse—_

 

—knew better than to ask.

 

“You can have it all,” he said, feeling like those words somehow meant more, as if he hadn’t already brought a fool’s worth of treasure for Cass to play with. It was all piled up in that rotten log, the only things that felt real and tangible around her. Cass himself was sort of smudgy around the edges, like a picture someone got sick of drawing halfway through.

 

He worked methodically through the offerings though. Because wasn’t that what they were? Jesse had wandered into these woods and found something immense there... and he’d been offering up tributes ever since. Cass fiddled with the yo-yo a little more. He placed the paper airplane in one of the few strands of sunlight that broke through their canopy, inching it there with all the delicacy of a tightrope walker. When he got to the Milky Way he crammed it all at once into his mouth, eyes suddenly blowing wide.

 

“That good?” Jesse asked.

 

Cass grinned with caramel teeth. “Yeah. Sure. But there’s _blood_ in it too,” and his eyes went wild again, edging the tattered bite on Jesse’s arm.

 

And the pain was there: a sharp throb that had him tugging at his sleeve.

 

Because Jesse remembered what Cass was talking about. Simon had pricked his finger on a picnic table splinter today, the piece of wood going sideways and causing a tiny spout of blood. It had dripped onto his sandwich—two red drops on white bread that made all the kids shriek in disgust—and it had apparently gotten in his chocolate too.

 

That was what got Jesse to move; the idea of Cass tasting someone else’s blood. Not his. Not Tulip’s. Fucking _Simon's_.

 

With a growl he leaned forward and snatched the Twizzlers out of Cass’ hand, mind too wooly to appreciate the surprised, human expression that flit across his face. Settling back in the dirt Jesse pulled out his switchblade with the same jerky movements and drew it sloppily over his arm.

 

It hurt enough to make the backs of his teeth ache, but who the hell cared? His arm was already a bruised, bloody mess from these daily meetings, and wasn’t it worth it to see that look creeping into Cass’ eyes?

 

A fool might have called it hunger. Jesse knew it was something closer to love.

 

“Here,” he said, dipping a Twizzler into the fresh blood and tossing it casually Cass’ way. Like you’d throw a friend a beer. Like you’d scoop cheese onto those fancy crackers. What they had was no different—except that it was better—and Jesse preened a little at seeing Cass gobble him up in two quick bites.

 

_“You’re like a dog!” Jesse howled, amazed and disgusted when Cass relieved himself too close to his boots._

_He laughed crazily. “I’m more dangerous than any dog!”_

“You’re insatiable,” he said, here and now, and Cass laughed again (was always laughing), his matted hair flying in front of his eyes.

 

“Tulip teach you that word?”

 

“Book did. Tulip teaches me four letter words.”

 

Laughter, longer and louder and Jesse tossed him more blood-coated Twizzlers. He coated all the food in a thin layer of blood until it was gone and then Jesse stood, backlit by the tree’s shadows and feeling uncommonly nervous.

 

“C’mon,” he said.

 

Because this is what they did now. He came, Cass drank, he offered things and then he left. There was some boundary between Annville and Cass’ little world that had nothing to do with tree lines or cemetery markers. He didn’t need Jesse’s blood with all the critters about—but he preferred it. He didn’t need cheap candy and toys either—but took them ravenously.

 

Jesse didn’t need to pull Cass over to his side of the line—but he’d do it anyway.

 

He held out a hand and Cass just sat there, a mangy cat licking something from the back of his arm. When he was done (tongue papery white, almost iridescent in the red of his mouth) he looked at everything but Jesse before landing his eyes on a small crop of weeds. Cass tugged two out, heedless of the thorns.

 

“Here,” he said, slapping them into Jesse’s palm. He left his hand there too and hauled himself up. “You gotta protect me from the sun, padre.”

 

“Told you I’m not a ‘padre.'" Jesse's chest was ballooning up. 

 

“And takin’ me in? Now you probably never will be.”

 

Maybe it was a lie, maybe not. Either way, Jesse tugged his shirt off and drew it over Cass’ head. He give him too-big boots to protect his feet and they set off together, the half mile to the church feeling unnaturally long.

 

_“Who are you?” Jesse whispered in the dirt, dimly aware that he wasn’t nearly as afraid as he should be._

 

_The monster shrugged. “Cassidy. But... whaddya need me to be?”_

 

Jesse wasn’t sure yet. Something more than this.

 

On their way out he brushed the bouquet of weeds over the last gravestone. For luck.

 

Fin.  

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> And as I watch the brick erode from day to day
> 
> The leaves change their colors and the loft fills with hay
> 
> As a blade of sunshine cuts across my chest
> 
> The blood beneath boils with unrest
> 
> You pass something down, no matter where or how
> 
> Will there be weeds or wildflowers affixed upon your bows?


End file.
